During a stay in Spain, will you still be able to fly between Madrid and Seville or between Barcelona and Valencia in a few months?
Nothing is certain.
Two left-wing political parties, the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSEO, at the head of government) and Sumar, have just reached an agreement within the Congress's Ecological Transition Commission aimed at reducing CO² emissions caused by aviation.
Among the planned measures, the elimination of air connections for which there is an alternative by train in less than two and a half hours.
If the agreement targets a total of eleven air routes, only five of them fully meet the criteria.
These are the routes that connect Madrid with Barcelona, Valencia, Alicante, Málaga and Seville on which train journeys are actually possible in less than two and a half hours.
The agreement does not necessarily provide for the total elimination of these connections, but at least their reduction.
Connecting flights, intended to supply the international “hubs” of Madrid or Barcelona for example, would be maintained.
Finally, the agreement will not be applied if it “negatively affects tourism and if rail alternatives are not efficient enough”.
The price of the train singled out
According to the associative collective Ecologistas en Acción, around 50,000 short flights could be eliminated each year on these eleven routes and this would result in a reduction of 30 to 40% in CO² emissions from domestic peninsular flights, and 10% in emissions from the all air transport in Spain.
We still need to convince travelers who complain about the cost of the train.
Although the kingdom with its 17 autonomous regions has the largest high-speed rail network in Europe (nearly 4,000 km of track), many Spaniards shy away from it because of the price of tickets.
So for a direct flight, Barcelona-Madrid, operated by Vueling in the middle of August, it costs between €28 and €48, for a journey of 1h25.
As for the Iberia company, prices vary between €70 and €90 for the same flight time.
To date, even if the price of plane tickets, including for low-cost flights, has increased significantly, it still remains generally lower than train prices.
If the project comes to fruition, Spain would follow the example of France, which in 2021 became the first country in the world to ban short domestic flights.
Although symbolic, this measure had little effect since only three connections (between Paris-Orly and Nantes, Bordeaux and Lyon) were eliminated.
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